Monday, April 1, 2013

Do a quick search on Pinterest for bunny cupcakes and you'll be sure to find the "bunny butt" cupcake. I found the one below, but I didn't like the candy licorice grass and I thought the feet were not proportional. The idea is hilarious, though! Instead of chocolate cupcakes and chocolate buttercream, the cupcake I used was a carrot cake (appropriate, right) paired with classic cream cheese buttercream.

The coconut grass was made by putting shredded sweetened coconut in a ziploc bag, then adding a few drops of green food coloring gel, closing up the bag and shaking it all around. The coconut was dried on a cookie sheet overnight. Taking some of the cream cheese buttercream and applying it to the top of the cupcake with a knife (or spatula), I gently rolled the cupcake in a bowl of the green coconut, then pressed loose coconut on the bare spots.

The bunny butt was a two stage process. The feet are made using melted white chocolate chips, piped using a #3 tip into free form bunny feet on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. When the white shape was done, I put them in the refrigerator to harden. Meanwhile, I melted more white chocolate chips and colored them with a soft pink food color gel (Americolor). Taking the white feet out of the refrigerator, the pink chocolate was piped on using a #2 tip. Completed feet were put back into the refrigerator.

For the butt and tail, I used all but a little of the remaining cream cheese buttercream, placed in a piping bag with a #14 tip, to create circular domes on a parchment lined cookie sheet - using a knife to smooth it a little. The tail was applied after all of the butts were complete. I chose not to pipe these directly onto the coconut grass because I was not sure if they would stick, and I didn't want to ruin the cupcake. Instead, I stuck the cookie sheet into the freezer for 10 minutes or so to harden the bunny butts, then used a flat metal spatula to lift the butts off of the parchment and place them gently onto the cupcake top. The feet were "glued" to the butt using the leftover cream cheese buttercream.

Wow...I think that was a record number of times I've used the word "butt" in a blog!

If you want a similar Easter themed cupcake, but don't want to go to the trouble of making the bunny butts, I would suggest that you consider using one of the variety of candy eggs out there. You can choose from the Cadbury Mini Eggs, Speckled Robins Eggs (Whoppers), Reese's Mini Eggs, or just a pile of jelly beans.

If you're interested, here is the carrot cake recipe I used:

Ingredients

2 cups granulated sugar

1 1/3 cups vegetable oil

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

3 extra large eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsps ground cinnamon

2 tsps baking soda

1 1/2 tsps kosher salt

3 cups grated carrots

1 cup shredded sweetened coconut

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Cream the sugar, oil, and vanilla together in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment
3. Add eggs, one at the time
4. Sift the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl - flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.
5. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet, using a low speed
6. Add the grated carrots, coconut, and nuts then mix until just combined
7. Line cupcake or muffin pans with paper liners and add batter until each liner is about 3/4 full.
8. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 30-35 minutes (depending on the size of the cupcake) until a toothpick comes out clean.

For the frosting:

1 stick (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, softened

1 box (1 lb) powdered sugar

8ox cream cheese, softened

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Cream the butter and cream cheese together with the vanilla using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment
2. Add the sugar and beat until smooth. If the frosting is too thin, add more powdered sugar.